Wind power stilled

Plans to create a wind farm in Grand Cayman are scuppered in favour of a Doppler early warning weather radar system because the turbulence caused by the blades of the wind turbines would interfere with the $4.6 million radar system.

The radar system will improve the accuracy of early warnings for hurricanes and other severe weather.
National Weather Service Director General Fred Sambula said that while the government was in favour of alternative energy, the wind farm and early warning radar system could not coexist.

Import duty reductions and fee deferrals

Import duty reductions and planning fee deferrals aimed at stimulating the construction and development industry began in January 2011. Premier McKeeva Bush announced the measures in his 2011 New Year’s  Day message.

For Grand Cayman, Mr. Bush said there would be a six-month deferral of Planning fees.

“Beginning on January 4th and ending the 30th of June, all projects submitted for Planning approval will be allowed to defer 100 per cent of the required infrastructure fees until the Certificate of Completion is required,” he said. “Additionally, 25 per cent of the building control fees will also be deferred until Certificate of Completion.”

As a further stimulus to Grand Cayman’s construction and development industry, Mr. Bush said that all projects submitting for Planning permission or for a building permit through 30 June, 2011, will be allowed to import materials until 31 December, 2011, at a flat import duty rate of 15 per cent.

“Our government will further ensure that local merchants will be granted a credit of the same value on the future importation and restocking of materials under this programme,” he said. “This will ensure that the local merchants will not be disadvantaged on the sale of materials they have already imported.”

Mr. Bush also announced a series of fee and import duty reductions for Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, including “up to 75 per cent” work permit fee reduction for workers in the Sister Islands. In addition, there will be a 50 per cent reduction on Trade and Business licence fees for businesses in the Sister Islands and a full duty waiver on building materials.

Mr. Bush said in his New Year’s Day message that he was confident 2011 would “begin a year of recovery, integration, nation-building and general success”.

Strategic Policy Statement

The government’s Strategic Policy Statement, presented in November 2010, indicated that due to the deficit-reduction policy stance of the current financial budget and the shrinking population size, the forecast for this budget year’s gross domestic product locally was - 1.7 per cent. According to the Economics and Statistics Office, this was likely to grow to 1.4 per cent in 2011-2012 and to 2.1 per cent in 2013-2014.

Mr. Bush said measures taken by his administration in the past year had led to the reduction of the unaudited budget deficit for the public sector to $15 million as of 30 June, 2010. “This represents a whopping reduction of $66 million from the corresponding figures of $81 million for the year ending 30th June in 2009 in the last government.”

He said there had been a $30 million improvement on the revised budget deficit from April 2010, as of 30 June, 2010.

Mr. Bush said there was continuing to be an increase in the number of companies and partnerships registered in Cayman, with new company registrations increasing by about 1 per cent and new partnership registrations going up by about 9.8 per cent.

He said he had asked the chairman of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority to lead a team of industry professionals to develop recommendations on broad strategic objectives for the financial services industry. Cayman will also target overseas investment and launch marketing road shows.

Two billion dollars in major projects are slated for the coming five years, including Camana Bay, Ritz Carlton’s Dragon Bay, new high-end condo developments on Seven Mile Beach, the cruise ship port, the Dr. Shetty’s medical tourism hospital, cargo port, the sewerage system and waste-to-energy facility.

East End seaport

Developer Joseph Imparato revealed plans to create a port in East End that would incorporate a commercial cargo port, cruise ship home port, luxury mega yacht marine, hydrocarbone storage facility and transhipment of cargo containers.

The developer urged the public to find out details about the plan before deciding if they would support or oppose it.
East End and North Side MLAs Arden McLean and Ezzard Miller organised public meetings to discuss the proposed development with constituents and launched a petition against the development.

Employability

Minister of Education, Training and Development Rolston Anglin, speaking during a debate on the Strategic Policy Statement, said the Islands’ ‘employability issues’ needed to be addressed before unemployment could be fully tackled.

“Do we understand that because of the soft economy we have some Caymanians that are unemployed that are completely ready for work? Yes. We have too many.

“That’s one of the reasons we need to get these projects off the ground... we have an employability issue. Until we address that employability issue, we will never truly tackle unemployment in this country,” said the minister.